"Craig A. James" <cjames(at)modgraph-usa(dot)com> writes:
> Is there no real-time garbage collection at all in Postgres?
No.
> And if so, is this because nobody has had time to implement garbage
> collection, or for a more fundamental reason, or because VACUUM is
> seen as sufficient?
If you really want to know, read the mountains of (mostly) junk that
have been written about replacing VACUUM in pgsql-hackers. The short
answer (with apologies to Winston Churchill) is that VACUUM is the worst
solution, except for all the others that have been suggested.
regards, tom lane